| 1. |
- Hammarström, Per, 1960-
(author)
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Nationens styvbarn : Judisk samhällsintegration i några Norrlandsstäder 1870-1940
- 2007
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In: Svensk kyrkotidning. - Stockholm : Carlsson Bokförlag. - 0346-2153. ; :51-52, s. 664-
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Syftet med denna avhandling är att undersöka vilken ekonomisk och social ställning den judiska minoriteten intog i det svenska samhället under perioden 1870 till 1940. Tidigare forskning har riktat stor uppmärksamhet mot rättsliga och politiska aspekter av den svenska judenhetens historia, mer sällan mot judarna och samhället i en bredare bemärkelse. Andra studier har lyft fram antisemitism på svensk mark utan att koppla fenomenet till en social nivå.Genom en undersökning av hur judiska invandrare, med ursprung i Östeuropa, successivt fogades in i några svenska lokalsamhällen, tar denna avhandling ett bredare grepp på frågan om judarna och samhället. Här undersöks hur den svenska judenheten integrerades i samhället efter det att emancipationen gett judarna fulla medborgerliga och politiska rättigheter. Judarnas ekonomiska och sociala ställning undersöks, liksom den sociala antisemitism som drabbade judarna. Studien rör sig i gränslandet mellan social- och kulturhistoria. Undersökningen visar att merparten av judarna i Sundsvall, en betydelsefull handelsstad i norra Sverige, fick sin försörjning genom en föga lönsam gårdfarihandel under början av undersökningsperioden. Sedan butiks- och grosshandelsrörelser började grundas inleddes en långsam socioekonomisk klättring. I takt med de ekonomiska framgångarna ökade judarnas sociala status, med engagemang i föreningslivet och lokalpolitiken. De framgångsrika familjerna tonade ner sin judiska identitet till förmån för en borgerlig och nationell kultur.Ungefär hälften av den judiska gruppen fick aldrig uppleva framgången utan förblev en marginaliserad grupp, med småhantverk eller gårdfarihandel som försörjningsbas. Det stora flertalet av denna underklass saknade svenskt medborgarskap. En social klyfta vidgades gentemot den judiska borgerligheten. Under hela undersökningsperioden var antisemitismen en kulturell kod i majoritetssamhället, oavsett integration och socioekonomisk framgång. Mycket tyder på att det sociala klimatet blev mer fientligt gentemot judarna efter 1920. Studien visar att nationalstaten Sverige lämnade litet utrymme för multikulturella strukturer. Judarna accepterades som nationens styvbarn men knappast som fullvärdiga svenskar.
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| 2. |
- Bedford, Sofie
(author)
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Islamic Activism in Azerbaijan : Repression and Mobilization in a Post-Soviet Context
- 2009
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Post-Soviet Azerbaijan is often portrayed as a very secular country. Thus the mobilization of mosque communities in the late 1990s and their conflictual relationship with the authorities came as a surprise. The main aim of the dissertation is to shed light on this mobilization, focusing on the Sunni Abu Bakr and the Shi’ite Juma mosque communities in Baku. On the premise that Islamic mobilization may be interpreted as a “social movement”, internal, contextual and interactional aspects of mobilization have been studied. The analysis is chiefly based on interviews conducted in Baku in 2004/2005 with Imams, worshippers, religious and secular authorities. The study finds that young people looking for new approaches to religion have been drawn to these communities, where they encounter an independent, educated, conscientious clergy and, indeed, a “new” religion. This “sovereign” Islam does not go down well with authorities who fear politicization of religion. The Soviet heritage has provided them with a view of religion as something that should not be publicly displayed and with the institutions to control religion. Another key feature whose impact on state policy towards religious organizations cannot be underestimated is the fear of imported radicalism. A look at Islamic mobilization in North Caucasus, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan reveals many similarities, yet one momentous difference is the harsher repression in these contexts, which decreases the chances of a non-radical mobilization. The thesis concludes that the role of the state in mobilization processes in non-democratic contexts is crucial but counterintuitive, as the regimes’ efforts to stop the mobilization of movements actually leads to its intensification. In Azerbaijan, official pressure brings community members closer together and strengthens their resolve, rather than putting an end to mobilization. It also puts a spotlight on these communities which lights up the way for others in search of something new.
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| 3. |
- Werner, Ann, 1976-
(author)
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Smittsamt : En kulturstudie av musikbruk bland tonårstjejer
- 2009
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Avhandlingen behandlar tjejers musikbruk samt hur detta formar genusidentitet. Den bygger på ett medieetnografiskt fältarbete om musikkonsumtion och musikproduktion bland tjugotre tjejer mellan fjorton och sexton år i en mellanstor svensk stad. Med teoretiska utgångspunkter i feministiska kulturstudier undersöks både talet om musik och materiella praktiker som fildelning. Analysen är uppdelad i tre teman: i det första temat studeras betydelsen av nya medier och digitalisering för tjejernas musikbruk samt hur maktrelationer av genus, ålder och klass påverkar användandet av medier i hemmet. I avhandlingens andra tema studeras istället vilken roll känslor spelar i musikbruket och hur det känslosamma lyssnandet artikulerar genusnormer och heterosexualitet. I det tredje temat undersöks hur musiksmaken formas i de kompisnätverk tjejerna ingår i samt hur de normer kring smak som skapas speglar samhälleliga diskurser om mångfald och jämställdhet samtidigt som de skapar hierarkier bland tjejerna. Avslutningsvis knyts temana ihop i ett resonemang om hur ”smittande” överföring genom musikrelaterad medietekniker, känslor och smaker begränsas av olika barriärer som återskapar maktrelationer knutna till genus, ålder, klass, etnicitet och sexualitet.
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| 4. |
- Adeniji, Anna
(author)
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Inte den typ som gifter sig? : Feministiska samtal om äktenskapsmotstånd
- 2008
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Den här avhandlingen undersöker frågan om äktenskapsmotstånd i dagens svenska samhälle, media och kultur. Boken belyser olika sätt att uttrycka äktenskapsmotstånd och vad det betyder att formulera feministisk kritik av normerande familjevärderingar.Undersökningen baseras på etnografi och kritisk kulturanalys och granskar synen på äktenskap, relationer och familj som ett kulturellt imaginärt fält. Det empiriska materialet består av intervjuer med kvinnor som inte har velat gifta sig, liksom ett brett material från tv, webbsidor, dagstidningar, skvallerpress och bloggar.I avhandlingen genomförs och presenteras en feministisk metodologisk process, grundat i akademiskt kreativt och självreflexivt skrivande. Detta innebär att skrivprocessen, textformatet, liksom minnesarbete, olika intervjutekniker och andra kreativa analytiska praktiker är en del av det metodologiska ramverket.De teoretiska perspektiven som ligger till grund för denna studie består av flera feministiska strömningar: radikalfeminism, queerfeminism, liberealfeminism, anarkafeminism och ett socialt rättviseperspektiv. De belyser, på olika sätt, intersektioner mellan äktenskap, genus, sexualitet, nationalitet, klass och makt. En gemensam utgångspunkt är att identitetskategorier, möjligheter att agera liksom vår plats i världen är konstruerade av maktrelationer och normativa föreställningar om genus. Dessa perspektiv tillhandahåller analytiska verktyg för att diskutera och dekonstruera kulturella föreställningar om äktenskap och äktenskapsmotstånd.
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| 5. |
- Doeser, Fredrik
(author)
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In Search of Security After the Collapse of the Soviet Union : Foreign Policy Change in Denmark, Finland and Sweden, 1988-1993
- 2008
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The aim of this study is to explain the evolution of foreign policy in Denmark, Finland and Sweden with regard to Western security cooperation between 1988 and 1993. The study sets out to test two theoretical perspectives on the security cooperation policies of these three small states. The external political perspective is based on the idea that foreign policy is determined by the challenges of a state’s external political environment. The domestic political perspective is based on the idea that phenomena at the domestic level of the state have an impact on how governments cope with external constraints. The primary theoretical ambition is to integrate the findings from these two analyses in order to further an understanding of the mechanisms of foreign policy change in small states.In order to study the relationship between the environment and foreign policy change, the author applies a perceptual approach, which means that his intention is to explain foreign policy action on the basis of the perceptions actors have of the environment.The author draws a number of conclusions with regard to the mechanisms of foreign policy change. First, a perceptual approach is needed in order to analyze a state’s specific responses to international political change. Second, domestic factors are not only important for foreign policy in general but also for the evolution of security cooperation policy in small states under conditions of fundamental shift in the international system. Third, it is possible to attribute some degree of relative explanatory power to external factors and to assign a range of different roles to domestic factors. Fourth, governments of Western democratic small states pay relatively equal attention to external and domestic considerations when making their foreign policies. However, depending on the situation, the relative potency of external and domestic factors can vary.
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| 6. |
- Edberg, Rune, 1946-
(author)
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Vikingaskeppet Ormen Friskes undergång : Ett drama i det kalla krigets skugga
- 2005
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This dissertation consists of three separately published parts, all dealing with problems involving reconstructions of Viking Age ships, travelling experiments with such ships and people’s relations and attitudes to them. The Ormen Friske, a Swedish replica of the Norwegian Gokstad ship, sank in the North Sea in June 1950, drowning all 15 on board. The ship was caught in ugly weather and steered for Helgoland, but at the same time U.S. aircraft carried out a high-altitude practice bombing run, targeting the island, unintentionally preventing the ship from reaching sheltered waters. Swedish officials suppressed the role of the bombing in the accident and rejected proposals for an inspection of the wreck. The disaster was instead blamed on the ship’s alleged deficiencies and the crew’s inexperience. The reason for the cover-up was to avoid annoying the Western allies. Most of the ship’s wreckage was then cleared away. But a few parts and artifacts were safeguarded, some of which still survive in museums, archives and private homes. They are discussed in terms of the varying meaning attributed to them by different authorities and people involved. Also, the remaining artifacts have their sentimental value thanks to their accompanying narratives. Together with graves and memorial sites these objects continue to mark people’s memories and conception of the disaster. The archaeologist studying the contemporary past must move beyond Archaeology’s traditional sources. Documents and files in government and private archives, letters, photos, newspaper articles, interviews, ethno-archaeological experiments and participating observation may be used. He shall feel free to intersect borders to other disciplines, fitting and interpreting evidence into a narrative context. Archaeology of the contemporary past deals with issues inseparable from the present and is therefore unevitably controversial. It is argued that the scholar should apply a reflexive approach, also scrutinizing his own background, social position and research incentives. During the 1990’s the author co-organized a number of experimental river journeys in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Latvia, analyzing the results in an archaeological, etnographical and historical context. The ship formed the required experimental platform but the essential feature was the voyage itself. Rowing vessels of the Scandinavian type upstream, through rapids and long portages, proved to be a strong, often impossible, challenge even for a very well trained and singe-minded crew. It is improbable that travellers ever brought ships all the way from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. It is suggested that Viking Age travellers instead traversed the part of the route ”From the Varangians to the Greeks” between the Novgorod area and the upper Dnepr area by foot or horse and sledge during winter. Russian archaeological material supports this explanatory model. The popular image of Viking ships crossing Russia on rivers seems, at least in part, to derive from folklore and legends in an international tradition.
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| 7. |
- Ehrlén, Karin
(author)
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Conceptions and artefacts : Children's understanding of the earth in the presence of visual representations
- 2007
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The studies in this thesis explore children’s understanding of the earth when presented with visual representations. The conceptual understanding is related to cognitive contexts as well as the physical and cultural state. Pictures and models, as communicative tools, are associated with both cognition and culture. The investigation was divided into three different studies, where the main differentiation was the category of visual representation of the earth that was used. In the first study eleven children, aged six to eight, were interviewed with a globe as a model of the earth. In the second study fourteen children, aged six to eight, were interviewed, this time with a poster of a satellite photo of the earth. In the third study, eighteen children, aged six to nine, were interviewed while they were drawing pictures the earth. The results showed that the influence of these representations could be detected in what the children talked about and in their choices of explanations. In the children’s conceptions of the earth, however, no clear influence from the representations was apparent. A possible explanation for this is that pictures and models can be produced according to different conventions for depicting. The alternative modes of depiction in the children’s culture appeared to make it possible for the children to choose a certain mode of depiction, in their interpretation of the representation that made this interpretation in accord with their own conception of the earth. Not only did the children express various conceptions of the earth, e.g. that people and countries were situated inside a globe, in the presence of the representations, but also some children drew pictures of the earth in line with conventional methods for depicting the earth, even though they may have expressed alternative conceptions. The results support the view that children hold conceptions, but they oppose to claims that naïve thinking is without conceptual structure, and that we have no foundation to locate conceptions in people’s minds, as distinguished from concepts that are located in cultural tools.
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| 8. |
- Garberding, Petra, 1965-
(author)
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Musik och politik i skuggan av nazismen : Kurt Atterberg och de svensk-tyska musikrelationerna
- 2007
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This thesis deals with relations between music and politics in Sweden and Germany during the 1930s and 40s. I study how music was used as a political tool, and the ideas that existed about musical expression of national and ethnic identity and about “good” and “bad” music. I argue that these conceptions became a driving force and were important to Swedish relations with Nazi Germany. The study focuses on material by and about the Swedish composer Kurt Atterberg (1887–1974). Atterberg was a central figure in the world of Swedish music during the first half of the 20th century and his life gives a glimpse of the spirit of the time. The theoretical platform arises from a critical discourse analysis combined with theories about modernity, nationalism and ethnicity. The empirical basis of the thesis consists of material from Swedish, German and Austrian archives, newspaper articles, radio programmes and interviews with composers of today. My study shows how Sweden and Germany inspired each other in the musical relationship. Both countries encountered similar problems. In the first half of the 20th century, modernisation accelerated in Europe, which also meant dramatic changes in musical life. Music could be spread to a greater extent without the composer’s control. New techniques, for example the sound movie, left many musicians unemployed. New musical styles appeared and challenged establishments. I argue that different ideas about national identity and its musical expression were important for the development of relations between Sweden and Nazi Germany. For many composers and musicians an engagement in Nazi Germany was interpreted as a contribution to the establishing of a strong national identity and the improvement of their own national musical life. Swedish-German musical relations were also influenced by different views on music and politics. For Nazi politicians music and politics ran together and music was to give expression to Nazi ideology. In Sweden music and politics were to be kept apart. Different perspectives on music and politics made it possible for Swedish composers and musicians to be active in Nazi Germany and to define their engagement as purely musical work. The Nazi government could for its part use Nordic composers and music to confirm Nazi ideas on race biology and to spread Nazi propaganda.
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| 9. |
- Kravchenko, Zhanna, 1978-
(author)
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Family (versus) Policy : Combining Work and Care in Russia and Sweden
- 2008
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The twentieth century has witnessed a revolution in the ways in which the social division of labour is organised, and in terms of how waged work and caring for children are reconciled. This study explores family policy from the perspective of its capacity to manage the socio-economic risks emanating from combining the roles of breadwinner and caregiver which many parents are beginning to do in contemporary society. This study is focused on Russia and Sweden, countries which have a large share of their female population in the labour force and an institutionalised public policy directed towards meeting the challenges of childrearing in dual-earner families.In the first empirical stage of the study, I examine the establishment and development of family policies in these countries, and analyse their effects in terms of how they have attempted to reconcile the competing demands of work and family life in recent years, specifically, by focusing on three main components: parental leave regulations, the organisation of early childcare and education, and schemes of financial assistance and support for families with children (including their impact on poverty reduction, with the use of Luxemburg Income Survey data). The next stage, involved the exploration of the normative setting in which employment and parenting are realised. To do this I used survey data from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), and its modules on Family and Gender Roles. In the final stage, by conducting in-depth interviews with families in Stockholm and St. Petersburg I was able to examine how decisions about using the available public means of assistance and support are negotiated within households, and which factors, other than public policy, influence such decisions. The results of these three empirical parts are juxtaposed in order to establish the relation between official inputs into family policy and the complex picture of its outcome in the two countries.
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| 10. |
- Lagerkvist, Amanda
(author)
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Amerikafantasier : kön, medier och visualitet i svenska reseskildringar från USA 1945-63
- 2005
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This dissertation examines the construction of an imaginary America in Swedish travel writing from 1945 to 1963. By placing focus on the intersecting dimensions of gender, media, and visuality, the aim is to analyze Swedish notions of the US that surface both in the written word as well as in the illustrative material, by contextualizing these imaginings within the expanding media culture of the time. Visuality is recognized as a meaning-making process and a vital aspect of travel culture; apart from ways of seeing, a range of pictorial expressions as well as visual metaphors are explored. What is argued is that the publications fostered a perspectival pluralism that bears witness to a mobile and ambivalent stance towards this emerging superpower and its modern mass culture. While the first chapter introduces the theoretical framework of this study as drawing on the fields of visual culture-, gender and media studies, the second chapter seeks to map out the historical as well as generic aspects of travel literature in relation to imaginings of America. Next to situating the travel books within a cultural history of media, the study addresses the interface of traveling and mediation. Travel writing is, moreover, conceived as scripting. The third chapter examines the viewing positions adopted by the Swedish travelers by focusing on how the arrival scene in New York and hence their first encounter with the US was depicted. What is stressed is that the presence of America within the Swedish mediascape heavily shaped the travelers’ expectations as well as perceptions, creating a mediatized gaze, which often turned their journeys into a ‘cinematic’ experience. Six stereotypical viewing positions are further discerned among which the travelers oscillated: the Tourist, the Natural Scientist, the Colonialist (expressive of a medial attitude toward the nation) and further the Anti-Hero, the Detective, and the Flâneur (expressive of criticism, reflexivity and ambivalence). The fourth chapter deals with the travelers’ discussions of American media and mass culture. What was voiced was often a highly ambivalent position. On the one hand, travel writers exposed a positive and enthusiastic response to American mass culture as being young and playful - ‘just for fun’. On the other hand, (visual) media forms such as cinema, television, comic strips and illustrated magazines were deemed as highly problematic and America, implicitly a ‘feminine’ culture, was regarded as lacking history and maturity. The fifth chapter approaches the representation of the American inhabitants. While whiteness was secured as the norm (through the American as bread-winner and the American woman who comprised a range of ideals about femininity), travelers nevertheless also paid attention to the hybridity of the American population. Afro-Americans and native Americans were approached as the other and were attributed along the lines of contrast. In addition, Americans were captured as creatures of transition and transgression. They challenged in provocative manner, norms about binary oppositions between masculine and feminine, high and low, ultra-modern and primitive, civilized and wild. In the final chapter, the study concludes that ambivalence was the key notion that Swedish travelers of the Post-war era came to develop towards America, a matter which foremost needs to be related to the realm of mediatization. Because of the mediated relationship to the country, America offered a high potential for self-reflexivity and the nation became a complex and moving projection screen for Swedish fears and fantasies. In all its materiality, America was also potentially a figment of the imagination.
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